Game of Thrones, Season 8 (spoilers allowed)

God, I hope so. And quickly. Danys is starting to rival Lara Axelrod for most unlikable TV character in a miniseries.

 

Dany kills Jon, Arya Kills Dany. Sansa becomes Queen. The actual Iron Throne appears to be buried or melted.

 

He's gonna do what he wants to, and that's fine with me. I'd love to see him finish GoT, but I'll live right through it if he never finishes "Winds of Winter". OTOH, I imagine that his publisher has long since paid him a substantial advance and is rather anxious to get it on the shelves.

But if Jim Butcher doesn't get "Peace Talks" out sometime soon, I may suffer an aneurysm...


Ever read any of the Harry Dresden books? Good stuff. I just checked on Peace Talks, the long delayed next book, to find:

"As of April 25th, 2019, the current draft of the novel is up to chapter 60. Progress! We don’t have a release date yet, but we’ll update this page, send out a newsletter, and tweet it to the high heavens the moment we do!"

Huzzah!

If you have not read any of his stuff, here's a short freebee off his site. It's a Christmas story, it's short, and it's damn good. Harry Dresden is a wizard. Mouse is his... familiar? Guardian? Friend? Anyhow, he's a massive Chinese Temple Dog. Anything else you'll get from context. Enjoy. Trust me. The guy knows how to write.

Christmas Eve, by Jim Butcher

 

Somebody on twitter commented that Lena Headey is getting paid a million per episode to play Cersei, and then noted that she just had gotten paid a million to stare out the window and drink wine.

 

The reality is by this point, the show is no longer based on the books; the books will be based on the show.

 

I posted something similar a few pages back, though it was focused primarily on Endgame. Marvel stuck the landing. Game of Thrones is already stumbling. I just hope they manage to avoid falling over completely in the final episode.

 

Mrs. Hondo is very good at that.

 

Great post except, ironically, the ending: “Lost” was a massive disappointment at the end, mostly bc the writers were always winging it throughout the series. At least GOT is closing the loop on plot threads.

 

I agree with much of that review. I especially liked his point regarding the contrast in sound and lighting during the episode, from quiet moments in the dark to the horrific destruction by sunlight. I wouldn't put it at the top of my list of episodes from the series, either, but I did think it was compelling.

I don't mine Dany's turn because I thought they had set it up for quite a while. I predicted it a while ago, though I thought it would be something smaller, like murdering Jon or just torching the Red Keep rather than the whole damn city. There were signs of it for quite a while before she suffered the devastating losses of the previous two episodes and the first part of this one.

I also didn't mind Jaime returning to Cersei. His devotion to her is actually far more in character than his decision to join the fight against the dead. With the gift of hindsight, I don't think there was a redemption arc at all. Jaime was simply more complex than we were led to believe at the start of the story and he had to back off a little after his hand was cut off. It's hard to get away with being such an arrogant asshole once he is no longer one of the best fighters in the world, but he's still the same character. He is still mostly bad, but with moments of decency and soft spots for Tyrion and Brienne.

As for Cersei at the end, what did people want her to do? She was fucked. There was no way out. She underestimated Dany and Drogon and there was no last-minute rescue this time. It's not like it was the first time she's given in to despair. Remember, she was ready to kill herself and Tommen near the end of the Battle of Blackwater Bay rather than suffer what Stannis and his men would have done to them.

The one bit I didn't care for was Arya turning back. I really don't think was in character for her to turn back at that moment. The main reason for it was to let Cersei and Jaime have their moment and to allow Arya to serve as a point-of-view for the destruction of the city and whatever role she has left to play in the finale.

 

So, I didn’t think of this until now. And I see it being mentioned on Twitter:
Did Arya actually die and the white horse was just her post-mortum?

 

Dany was overly cruel in the past, but only to those who wronged her. That’s why this heel turn rang false to me. She killed all of them because she thought they didn’t love her.

 

I don't think so. They haven't really done anything like that before. I think she actually survived.